The Last Escape Room

The Last Escape Room – by Liam Sweeny.

Escape rooms are neat. Get locked in, solve a bunch of clever riddles with your crew, and find the magic key that opens the door that is your… escape, that’s right. But escape rooms can be scary. The idea of being locked in a room, even though they’d let you out eventually, puzzle solved or no, is a big ole’ claustrophobia trigger.

But imagine if you will the tiniest escape room… no, not a studio apartment going for $3,500 in the shit-end of New York City, smaller. Not even the bathroom of that studio apartment. We’re talking breathing room here. We’re talking a coffin.

Two coffins, actually. For you and a friend. And the escape room is basically your funeral, and as you and your friend communicate over a loudspeaker in the coffins, solve puzzles and gather clues to get yourselves out, or find the fate of your eternal rest – or a fiery cremation.

No, they don’t actually kill you. That would be a “no escape room.” But just the idea of being locked into your coffin is pretty damn scary. You get to pick what kind of coffin you get, and what kind of service you get, including whether or not you are ‘cremated’ to digital flames.

I like cool stuff. Axe throwing? Hell yeah. And any normal escape room, I’d be down. But no way in hell I’m getting in a coffin. That place burns down, you think they’re getting the coffin people out first? Nope. And I’m assuming these things are locked. Imagine if the lock breaks? No way Jose, or whatever your name is that carries the keys to a simulation of my mortal fate. I’m out.

Also couldn’t hurt to add that at 6’8″, they’d have to chop me off at the shins to fit me in there, which adds to what I have to think about should I ever think about my own real last wishes. Yeah, so cremation it is.

You can have your coffins. I’ll escape this whole topic tomorrow.

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